Women in the Weight Room

The Troy High weight room is a place for pumping iron. Football players, wrestlers, and various other sport teams find their way to that sacred place nearly everyday, often supervised only by captains or a single assistant coach. When a group of girls find themselves in the weight room, usually once all of the guys are gone, they are met with suspicion.
As a member of the girls swim team, I often spent practices lifting weights, whether that be deadlifts, squats, rows or crunches. Usually the swim coach will reserve time for us girls to work out, and then he will accompany us there, helping us focus on form. One day, however, the assistant coach, a woman, came with a small group of us, instead of the head coach, to the weight room. Before we had been in the room five minutes, one of the football coaches poked their head in and demanded to know what we were doing. We explained the situation, but he still didn't seem satisfied. He watched us wearily for a few moments before heading back to the field.
Why is it so wrong to find a girl in the school weight room? You'll find girls swarming the public gym every day of the week. So what is so different between one and the other? Sure it might be unusual to see a lady squating 150 pounds, but she obviously has the skill and knowledge to do it correctly, especially under coach supervison, or she would have been injured a long time ago.

The real difference is gender stigma. When you think of a school weight room you think of jocks, of big muscular guys doing bicep curls with unbelievably large dumbbells. When you think of a public gym, you see girls in short-shorts jogging on the treadmill. But there are girls who use the weight room for weights. So step aside boys, it's our turn.